GRAHAM CITY- The mid-term general elections are approaching fast, and in Graham state, things are looking good for former teacher Wooten-Whitaker, as she finally regained a cushion over her main opponent, political activist Grady Walton.

In a new poll done by PWN News Graham City, Diane Wooten-Whitaker is currently leading at 44%, Grady Walton is at 29%, and incumbent Andrew Carmichael is at 23%.

Last month, outrage erupted after the election committee allowed incumbent Andrew Carmichael back into the race citing his public apologies and tangible efforts to fix situations and get stuff done. Walton, who gained much of his support from a voter base that was strongly dissatisfied with Carmichael’s record as state executive. Wooten-Whitaker had been much less harsh on Carmichael, a decision that seems to have been a good thing, as voters seem to want to give Carmichael a second chance.

Most of Wooten-Whitaker and Walton’s support comes from Graham City itself, which, considering the financial crisis, was more ready for a change in leadership. Carmichael’s primary support group is coming from the much wealthier population of Perrysville, where Carmichael’s original support came from in the first place, but while most Graham Citians aren’t planning on voting for him, they have gained a new respect for his changed attitude and actual effort. Graham City has seen huge steps taken in the recovery process after the passing of Carmichael and Wooten-Whitaker’s F.R.A.B.I Act (Funding Reallocation and Business Incentive Act), and in that time Carmichael has gone from 4% approval to a whopping 57% approval, a nearly unheard of jump. Another 30% still just aren’t sure.

Wooten-Whitaker blasted back against accusations that working with Carmichael on several bills was an attempt to team up on Grady Walton with the following post on Tweetbook:

…How would we have an unfair advantage? We’d be splitting our own vote 😛 The idea that me and Carmichael are “teaming up” against Walton is preposterous. Besides, I didn’t even know he’d be let back into the race. We worked together because we had the same goals and needed means to get things done, without waiting until after the election. The citizens of Graham needed immediate action. Look how far we’ve come just through those actions. A large part of leadership is being able to work together to get things done.

Wooten-Whitaker’s jump comes after a sharp jump in Carmichael support after he was allowed back in the race. A poll done in August had Wooten-Whitaker at 39%, Grady Walton at 30%, and Andrew Carmichael at 27%, which caused many legitimate concerns in the Wooten-Whitaker camp and made the Walton camp furious. That poll had the smallest gap between Walton and Wooten-Whitaker ever, leaving Wooten-Whitaker’s campaign to fear that their seemingly successful election ship was sinking. Most of Walton’s supporters strongly hated Carmichael, so almost all of that extra support for Carmichael was taken away from Wooten-Whitaker, bringing her down from an almost all time high of nearly 70% of the vote back in July to a nearly all time low of 39%, close enough that Walton could have easily overtaken her. While technically this would have been amazing news for Walton’s campaign, the fact that it gave Carmichael that much of a chance to catch up to him, a candidate that had been facing corruption charges and at one point had been kicked out of the race, was “outrageously against the principle”, as Walton phrased it in an August speech blasting Carmichael and Wooten-Whitaker for seemingly “supporting him”.

However, this most recent poll shows that Wooten-Whitaker still has a strong advantage. Despite all of his talk of momentum (which is somewhat true considering that initially Wooten-Whitaker was consistently dropping in the polls as Walton gained support) Walton has recently only seen losses over time, even with Carmichael back in the race. Carmichael isn’t even actively campaigning at this point, seemingly not super enthusiastic about being back in the race. One generally reliable source actually seemed to imply that Carmichael may even drop out of the race voluntarily and endorse Wooten-Whitaker, but that source has not been confirmed.